


a treasure known only to you

by 21tales



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Author's Favorite, Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, One-Sided Attraction, and other things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25590262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21tales/pseuds/21tales
Summary: yachi hitoka and the numerous struggles of growing up.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 48





	a treasure known only to you

**Author's Note:**

> yachi is a character i hold very close to my heart and i've always wanted to write about her! i hope this raw and mostly unedited 'word-vomit' fic does her justice!

  
  
  


_ The more you become an adult, the more capable you become of regret. _

  
  
  
There has never really been a primary motivation for Yachi Hitoka to do things. Well, for the most part she did things to not disappoint her mother and for the rest, she did things because they were the only obvious option: study well, get good grades, look after the house, make sure her notes are neat and tidy, do her homework on time. All general things for a generally unhappening life. So, she did what she had to, and because she wasn’t inspired by an end-goal or a great dream, she lived on how she always had. 

If this was a manga, she’d be a side character in someone else’s story and if lucky, she could be an important one, too! It’s not like she hates being Townsperson B. It’s just who she is. It’s too taxing to think of things bigger than herself, so she’d rather keep her world small and easy to understand.

That is all until a beautiful girl wanders into her life in her first year of high school. Hitoka is too entranced by the third-year’s silky, smooth hair and soft hands to realise that she has agreed to look into becoming the manager of her school’s boys’ volleyball team.

_ Oh well _ , she thinks. Just looking shouldn’t hurt. Hitoka never has had a reason to do anything specific in particular but she doesn’t have a reason to disagree either. She’ll ask her mother about it later anyway.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
She does ask her mother and her mother is very blunt about it.

_ “If you’re going to join a group of very serious people, the rudest thing you can do is give a half-hearted effort,”  _ her mother says to her and leaves for work. Hitoka waves her goodbye, her spirits low, which was a reaction she had not expected from herself.

True. She hasn’t exactly been the most driven person. To join the club on a whim would be unfair. 

_ “Even when you start something on a whim, it might grow into something that’s precious to you,”  _ the pretty manager, Shimizu Kiyoko, says to her the next day. Hitoka feels her spirits lighten up a little.

...That’s true as well.

_ “When it comes down to it, you really want to do it, right, Yachi-san?”  _ The orange-haired loudmouth of the volleyball team, Hinata Shoyo, asks her later that day. Like it’s obvious.

_ Again, true, _ Hitoka thinks to herself. Being indecisive sucks. 

_ “Y’know, why don’t you tell your mother, then?”  _ He asks again, like it’s  _ so  _ obvious. It’s as if lightning has stricken poor Hitoka’s heart on hearing those words. 

_Tell my mother? How I **feel**?_

  
  


* * *

  
  
Hitoka ends up doing exactly that.

_ “Townsperson B can fight too! I’m going to be the manager of the volleyball club!” _

And with those words, her small world grows a little bigger.

(Hitoka hears much later from her mother’s coworker that her mother had cried that day, which was surprising to say the least.)

  
  


* * *

  
  
Hitoka’s days in the volleyball club are more eventful than she had anticipated. As she learns all the roles and positions and different types of plays, she finds herself being more involved in the sport, which should’ve been obvious in the first place—being in the volleyball club only meant having more volleyball in her life. It’s something she may have started on a whim, but she grows to care about every little detail and she hopes that one day, just like Shimizu, she gets to be of greater help to the team.

She’s watched them lose more than she’s watched them win in practice matches and somehow the air surrounding everyone seems less of failure and more of opportunity. She cannot pinpoint what watching them makes her feel, but the feeling most definitely threatens the absence of a ‘goal’ in her life.

True, she’s not as driven as them and she sure as hell is not as intense as Hinata, but in moments where she jumps with excitement on a point the team scores, or has shivers run down her spine on seeing a spike that would rip someone’s arm off, she sometimes feels like she’s  _ in  _ the team. She voices this out to Shimizu one day, who laughs lightly in response. 

“Well, of course you are part of the team,” the third-year says. “Every victory belongs to us, too. We have our pride as managers, you know?”

Seeing her laugh, Hitoka smiles sheepishly. “Right.”

“I’m glad you realised this on your own, though.”

Being a manager comes with its own set of expectations, and Hitoka lives up to them just like she always has and has been expected to. Though, it doesn’t change the fact that choosing the club was on her and her alone and it adds onto the ‘pride’ Shimizu spoke of. She is still a little clumsy and shy and rough around the edges when it comes to important tasks, and to be frank, she isn’t exactly equipped to deal with her hot-headed classmates engaged in an ugly fist fight, but she’s  _ there  _ and thankfully has all her amazing senpai to guide her. At least for now.

Even when she’s directly thrown into the deep-end in what was their first official match in the Spring Tournament, she manages (at least that’s what she thinks) to keep her nerves at bay. A giant arena with almost blinding lights, and the bright-orange court does nothing to ease the anxiety but remembering the back of her senior who left to collect Hinata’s misplaced pair of shoes, she’s reminded that she isn’t alone in this. She is part of the team after all.

She has been for a while now and she’ll continue to be because that is a decision she made for herself and she isn’t going to make herself regret it.

  
  


* * *

  
  
What comes next is two years of Hitoka being given a position of leadership with her inevitably becoming the senior manager of the volleyball club.

Her seniors graduate and Hitoka grows out her hair. She’d been putting off a haircut, especially considering how intense the latter half of the first year of high school had been for her, and in the end she decides she likes how she looks in a ponytail. Shimizu used to think it was cute and that boosts her confidence up just a little. 

The team, now one of the top-eight in the nation, has new members and even more schools asking for practice matches, so Hitoka’s second year begins a little early and is a lot more intense than what she imagined. Being so caught up in trying to keep up, she’s a good couple of weeks into the school year when she realises she didn't even bother scouting for a junior manager. 

She’s about to curse herself with, well,  _ something _ , but luckily Takeda-sensei introduces her to an angel—a first year who had not yet joined a club and liked the sound of being the manager of a powerhouse team—and Hitoka welcomes her with the most awkwardly emotional greeting, which thankfully isn’t enough to scare away the new recruit. 

Grateful as she is, however, she can’t help but wonder if she herself could’ve gotten someone to join like Shimizu did before her. 

In the end, she has that one junior to teach and guide, and nothing has really changed about what is expected of her. Her year goes on as the previous one: dealing with loud teammates, helping around with training, managing everything with the teachers during training camps, observing and collecting data during practice matches, trying hard to remember how to breathe during tournament matches. The team loses out on going to the Interhigh, but makes it to the top sixteen in the Spring Tournament. 

And all that time, Hitoka wonders how things could’ve been different. Maybe if she’d been pushy like Takeda-sensei, or more driven like Hinata, or more composed like Shimizu, or more experienced in the sport, or  _ something _ ...would things be different? It’s no use thinking about everything at the end of it all, yet she wonders.

Another manager joins in her third year, and another wild year goes by and Hitoka learns to be more assertive than before. And this time, their year ends on the centre court. 

Hitoka leaves the team, now third in the nation, and finds herself in a surrounding of people trying to claw their way into the real world, the world outside of high school, much farther than the world of competitive sport, much different and much newer and a little crueler, as her mother puts it. Her classmates have already gotten a head-start in their studies, and at the end of the line, Hitoka finally finds herself looking back and wondering. It’s a small, fleeting thought, but it’s there for a while and her heart drops as she tries to engage with the thought. 

For just that small moment, she wonders how things would’ve been different if she hadn’t joined the volleyball club.

  
  


* * *

  
  
Unlike her mother, Hitoka doesn’t get into the first University she applies to. Instead, she chooses the design school in Sendai and remains in Miyagi, while her friends in the volleyball club, except Yamaguchi (bless his mortal soul), choose to chase whatever spark they discovered in the sport of volleyball. 

She masks her disappointment with numerous reasons. This is a good University, even her mother has minimal complaints! And it’s closer to home so she doesn’t have to move out yet. Moving to Tokyo would’ve been a hassle anyway, so she’s glad she got to stay. Someone had to hold the fort while her friends were out there in different parts of the world after all.

And so her life goes on yet again: study well, get good grades, look after the house, do her assignments on time, work to get into a good internship, and so on. Of course, like always, she manages. She always has. And as she works, she gets further away from what she had put her soul into during her time in high school. 

At least she thinks she does.

“You seem to know a lot about volleyball, Hitoka-chan.” 

It’s the beginning of the summer quarter of her second year, and Hitoka has invited her friends over for the weekend while her mother is out on a work-related trip. The three of them are lounging on the living room sofa, watching the live telecast of the volleyball match between Japan and the United States. It is the Olympics quarter-finals.

Hitoka doesn’t realise that she’s been making commentary out loud, and that she  _ isn’t  _ surrounded with volleyball monsters anymore or people who’ve spent years analysing every possible move in the game. She’s with regular people who probably have only touched a ball in gym class, and will probably not understand her if she goes on about Japan’s defence strategy to deal with USA’s powerful OH.

“Sorry,” she says, a shade of red tingeing her cheeks. “Old habits die hard, I guess? I used to be a manager of the boys’ volleyball club in high school so I picked some stuff up.”

The two girls simultaneously part their lips. “That’s so cool!” says one, a little too enthusiastic, and Hitoka turns redder. “No wonder you were such a natural at creating promotional material for the festival. You’re from Karasuno, right? Wasn’t their team super cool or something?”

“Isn’t one of the players supposed to be in the national team?” asks the other and Hitoka nods.

“What?!” they both exclaim. 

“You know someone from the national team?” If only she could capture an image of their surprise, put it into a poster with a tacky sounding title, and put that poster up somewhere to remind herself of what she’d said to them to gain that reaction. It is much like her surprise the day she saw a tiny middle-blocker fly higher than anyone else on the volleyball court, the moment which she had also coincidently captured in a poster.

The heat in her cheeks fades away and Hitoka lets that old pride of a manager return to her for the first time in a long while. She was well aware that she knew some amazing people thanks to the club, but it had never really sunk that it is, in fact, insane that she got to witness these amazing people grow and reach where they are right now. To have been part of their lives and to have helped them in whatever way she could. She’s not the one taking the world by storm and she’s certainly not the one scoring service aces against a much stronger team, but she’s been a part of that world and even if it’s gone now, it is something she devoted a long time to, so of course she holds it close to her heart.

But that time has also long since ended, so after the match is over, Hitoka’s pride also dissolves and is replaced by the panic of the assignments mailed to her that night.

  
  


* * *

  
  
Hitoka, starting with her final year in University, interning at a major design company, is also feeling rather empty at this wedding. Feeding onto her selfishness, she remains abnormally quiet throughout the ceremony and after dinner, she finds herself a quiet corner. Yamaguchi shows up holding two glasses of something sparkly and sweet. Tsukishima is behind him with his own glass of kahlua. They say nothing to respect her silence as Yamaguchi hands her a glass, sitting down on either side of her. She returns Yamaguchi’s sad smile and taps her drink lightly against his. 

Her friends drink in silence, letting the faint music and chatter in the hall take over, while she stirs the wine for a while, watching the liquid spiral around its centre, wondering if this wedding could’ve gone differently if she was ever honest about her feelings.

“Cheers,” she later says, and downs her drink.

  
  


______

  
  
“Yachi-san! Did you see that?! Did you see me?!”

“Yes! Just watching you play was like...like….”

“Like... _ hooooaaahhh _ ??”

“Yeah! Like that!” 

Hinata returns from Brazil alive and he returns bigger than ever. Kageyama is still the monster he is, if not stronger. Tsukishima has been scouted by the Sendai Frogs while balancing University and an internship, so he’s also evolved into his own kind of monster. Yamaguchi is, well, the same Yamaguchi who once kept these monsters in check. And Hitoka is still Townsperson B, but she’s the Townsperson B who’ll start with her job next year in the place she currently interns at (a place she found with help from her mother after a lot of what-if’s.) 

And while she looks forward to  _ that _ , she certainly couldn’t have missed  _ this _ : Kageyama and Hinata’s first match against each other since the one in middle school and while the Townsperson B in her rooted for Hinata, she could’ve sworn she lost count of how many times she’d switched sides. This was  _ not  _ the volleyball she watched in high school, or in college, or even in the V.League. 

In the adrenaline filled air, and in the presence of the group of people she met years ago within the halls of a small school gymnasium, she forgets the what-if’s and what-could’ve-been’s. For just that while she joins her friends to not just relive memories, she lives in a present she’s been looking for. A present of certainty resulting from an uncertain past; where she’s sure of the ones she’s with, with what she’s learned, seen, and acquired through all that she’s chosen to do. At this moment, she feels happy for her friends; she feels happy with her friends.

(More importantly, she probably wouldn’t have been able to see them here if she went to the school in Tokyo. Which she is totally over, by the way.)

_ “Townsperson B can be super awesome, too!” _

She thinks of Hinata’s words from years ago and smiles to herself. It’s been a while but she still couldn’t bring herself to be as simple-minded as him. Maybe she should try harder to stop thinking so much. Maybe she could learn more from her volleyball-driven friends, who have been engaged in some argument for quite some time now.

“Kageyama! Wanna get back to arm wrestling now?”

“You’re on, scrub.”

“Geh. Do you two never stop.”

“Let them be, Tsukki.”

  
  


* * *

  
  
Hitoka leaves work one day with a senior, who has to make a detour to pick her son up from—wait for it—his volleyball class. As they walk back home with the tween bouncing the ball rather unsuccessfully with his hands, Hitoka makes a comment about him not bending his knees properly as he receives, which leads to her co-worker eyeing her with surprise, perhaps having difficulty connecting Hitoka’s small stature to her knowledge of volleyball. Hitoka waves her off, telling her she’s never actually played the sport, is simply a fan (who only follows the sport very religiously) and nothing more.

The boy’s curiosity is piqued and he asks Hitoka to show how it’s done, which she explains in her own awkward way, and the tip helps the boy with bouncing the ball up straight. By the time she waves them goodbye at an intersection, Hitoka gains yet another friend through volleyball. 

She has never had a grand incentive to do things, and she’s never had grand long-term dreams. She’s never been completely sure of what she’s wanted and as she’s grown, her regrets have piled up. Ripping apart and picking at each regret would take too much effort, so it’s better to move all those regrets to an invisible layer, only to be looked at for reference when the time comes.

Life doesn’t seem to be very straight-forward and you never know what decision brings what type of consequence. Maybe you get into something on a whim and end up giving it your all. Maybe you want to get into that design school in Tokyo but you end up in Miyagi instead. Maybe you choose a job that feels right at the time but doesn’t end up being satisfying later. Maybe you don’t get the girl of your dreams and it just results in an expanded collection of sad shojo manga. In the end, however, you simply live with the choices you made. You make mistakes, but you do things you feel were right at the time. 

Each time Hitoka chose herself, she just became more human.

And so, she is glad she took that first step at becoming human; when she yelled at the top of her lungs telling her mother standing across the street that she’d become the manager of a high school volleyball club.

She has lived with that one choice, and will live with every single one she makes from now on.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! let me know your thoughts :3
> 
> [ find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tsukkisachi) and [tumblr](https://21tailsofwoe.tumblr.com/) !!! ]


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